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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide

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Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your host,

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Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey, everyone, welcome to Wire to Hunt Foundations

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Speaker 1: podcasts brought to you by First Light. Today's episode is

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Speaker 1: all about developing a successful gun hunting strategy built around

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Speaker 1: bow hunting style. Gun hunting white tails is the most

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Speaker 1: popular kind of hunting in the country. This mid to

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Speaker 1: late November time frame is when it happens throughout much

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Speaker 1: of the white Tails range, and in some dear crazy states,

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Speaker 1: it happens to the tune of hundreds of thousands of

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Speaker 1: people hitting the woods decked out in blaze orange, all

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Speaker 1: at the same time. Generally, like three or four out

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Speaker 1: of every ten of those hunters will leave the deer

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Speaker 1: shack with a filled tag. The rest they're eating tag. Sup.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of reasons for this, but mostly it's

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Speaker 1: because a lot of gun hunters don't hunt like they

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Speaker 1: should because they hunt like gun hunters. Now, there's a

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Speaker 1: different way, a better way to do it, which is

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Speaker 1: what I'm going to talk about on this episode right now.

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Speaker 1: Growing up as a dedicated bow hunter made me kind

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Speaker 1: of an asshole for quite a few years. Most of

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Speaker 1: it was just bitterness at my buddies who didn't know

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Speaker 1: anything about deer hunting. They didn't scout, and they still

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Speaker 1: went and sat at the end of a drive during

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Speaker 1: our Minnesota season, and those bastards killed deer. It felt unfair.

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Speaker 1: But as the editor of this podcast likes to say,

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Speaker 1: when I'm whining about something, them's the brakes, dude, and

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Speaker 1: he's right. I had no grounds to complain about those

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Speaker 1: deer hunters who were just as happy to be in

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Speaker 1: the woods doing their thing as I was. But that

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Speaker 1: was part of the source of my discontentment. I wasn't

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Speaker 1: in the woods and they were, and all I wanted

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Speaker 1: to do was always be in the woods, which is

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Speaker 1: something I haven't really kicked yet. I stayed out though,

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Speaker 1: thinking that a really serious bow hunter wouldn't be caught

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Speaker 1: dead in the general firearm season, and I stuck to

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Speaker 1: that until I came into possession of a suitable rifle

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Speaker 1: after planning a wyoming antelope hunt with my dad. Before that,

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Speaker 1: I didn't really even own a dear rifle, and actually

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Speaker 1: owning a deer rifle that I could deer hunt with

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Speaker 1: it softened my stance just a little bit, but I

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Speaker 1: still didn't go rifle hunting for deer until I was

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Speaker 1: twenty six, fourteen years after I started bow hunting. Even then,

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Speaker 1: way up north near the Boundary waters, I mostly left

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Speaker 1: my center fire at the cabin and took my shotgun

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Speaker 1: out for grouse. It wasn't until a few years later,

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Speaker 1: when I was suffering from a serious about of buck

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Speaker 1: fever and the yips as a bow hunter, that I

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Speaker 1: still had a buck tag going into the gun season.

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Speaker 1: Now you're probably guessing what happened. I had a buck tag,

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Speaker 1: had a deer rifle for the first time in my life.

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Speaker 1: I also coincidentally had permission to keep hunting a chunk

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Speaker 1: of land that I've been bow hunting all season long

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Speaker 1: up in north central Minnesota. There was one buck in there,

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Speaker 1: a thirty type of deer that I had been after

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Speaker 1: since the bow opener, and while I'd seen him a

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Speaker 1: few times, I hadn't had him in range. So I

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Speaker 1: bought a gun tag and I waited until the landowner

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Speaker 1: had gotten his hunting fix. Six days into the season,

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Speaker 1: I went in and watched the field where the buck

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Speaker 1: like to feed. I also listened to a neighbor rattle

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Speaker 1: almost non stop the entire time. I didn't see anything,

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Speaker 1: and this is only speculation on my part, but neither

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Speaker 1: did he. In fact, I bet that guy has never

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Speaker 1: seen a deer while he was hunting. All Right, all right,

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Speaker 1: maybe that's a little too harsh, but that dude rattled

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Speaker 1: so much, so much. In fact, I was thinking, in

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Speaker 1: all of my years that I've been out here in

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Speaker 1: the woods all season long, I have only ever witnessed

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Speaker 1: a couple of buckfights, and this guy is raging a

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Speaker 1: monster buck fight every five ten minutes. Crazy. Anyway, it

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Speaker 1: felt pretty stupid to be deep into the gun season

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Speaker 1: and sitting on an open hayfield, even though that's where

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Speaker 1: I wanted to be because I knew I could shoot

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Speaker 1: the whole thing. It was a weird feeling going from

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Speaker 1: carrying a bow all season where I might shoot maybe max.

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Speaker 1: Forty yards, and yet going out there a couple of

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Speaker 1: weeks later and carrying a gun that I could shoot

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Speaker 1: two hundred three hundred yards with. Now, the deer in

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Speaker 1: that area they get hunted hard, and they clearly know

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Speaker 1: that waiting until dark is a better strategy than rolling

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Speaker 1: across the wide open while dodging rifle shots that made

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Speaker 1: me think I gotta have a better plan for the

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Speaker 1: following morning. So I made a better plan. I figured

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Speaker 1: i'd go wade into the captule slew. The buck seemed

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Speaker 1: to frequent. I knew he was betting in there, I

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Speaker 1: didn't know how much time he was spending in there.

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Speaker 1: I thought maybe that's the place he'd show himself. So

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Speaker 1: I got in of that slew in the dark, and

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Speaker 1: then a little after first light, as it so often

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Speaker 1: happens in good cover, I suddenly realized there was a

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Speaker 1: doze standing like a five yards away. Then I even

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Speaker 1: more suddenly realized the buck I had tried to kill

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Speaker 1: all fall was standing right behind her. Listen, I'm not

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Speaker 1: a very good rifle shot. I'm just gonna tell you

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Speaker 1: that flat out. So it didn't go as planned with

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Speaker 1: a one shot, one kill type of thing. I did

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Speaker 1: knock him down with the first shot, but he got

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Speaker 1: back up and I did end up shooting a few

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Speaker 1: more times. It wasn't pretty, but in my defense, the

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Speaker 1: debilitating buck fever that I had plagued me in the

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Speaker 1: bowstand followed me right to that natural ground blind. Even

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Speaker 1: though I was carrying a far more lethal weapon, and

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Speaker 1: I really had no excuse for not making a perfect shot.

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Speaker 1: When I stood over that thick necked buck, I realized

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Speaker 1: a couple of things. Even when we think the deer

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Speaker 1: are probably totally gone, they often aren't. That dear used

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Speaker 1: cattile slew all summer, I watched him. He was in

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Speaker 1: there all fall, I know it, And then he was

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Speaker 1: in there during the gun season, deep into gun season,

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Speaker 1: on pressure ground. If you want to kill a buck

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Speaker 1: with a rifle or a shotgun and you hunt pressure ground,

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Speaker 1: it made me realize you've got to kind of think

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Speaker 1: like a bow hunter. This has paid off for me

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Speaker 1: almost every single time I've ever picked up a rifle

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Speaker 1: in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and often results in fifty or sixty

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Speaker 1: yard shots in the cover. It's also something you should

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Speaker 1: think about if you're going to partake in the general

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Speaker 1: gun season. But first you've got to understand what most

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Speaker 1: of us get wrong when we throw some shells in

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Speaker 1: the pockets of our blaze orange coveralls, in which the

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Speaker 1: rest of our hunting party good luck before we head out.

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Speaker 1: The first thing is the luck part. An awful lot

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Speaker 1: of gun hunters are banking on luck to send a

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Speaker 1: buck their way they think if they sit long enough,

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Speaker 1: one of the neighbors will bump a deer in their

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Speaker 1: direction and listen that happens, but counting on it, it's

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Speaker 1: probably a bad idea. You don't have to get lucky

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Speaker 1: to kill deer, even though it helps. The second thing

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Speaker 1: that gun hunters tend to get wrong, in my opinion,

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Speaker 1: is that they have their quote unquote spot. They're one spot.

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Speaker 1: This will almost always be a ladder stand or a

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Speaker 1: box blind that allows them to see from one end

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Speaker 1: of the field to the other, or for five yards

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Speaker 1: up and down a power line cut. It might be

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Speaker 1: on a slight rise, near a huge clear cut, or

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Speaker 1: where a fire lane has been cut between a pine

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Speaker 1: plantation and a patch of thicker brush. Wherever it is,

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Speaker 1: you can bet that it will offer one thing a

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Speaker 1: good view. Deer hunters in general are hooked on seeing

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Speaker 1: a lot of ground, and rifle hunters they're the worst.

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Speaker 1: US bow hunters were pretty bad. Rifle hunters they're worse.

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Speaker 1: This is due, of course, or at least I suspect

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Speaker 1: to having a weapon that can reach out and touch them.

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Speaker 1: After all, aren't your odds better of filling a tag

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Speaker 1: if you have the ability to see and shoot a

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Speaker 1: couple hundred yards in every direction absolutely provided the deer

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Speaker 1: walks through those spots, But that spodder for the whole

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Speaker 1: point of this episode, which I'll get into shortly. For now,

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Speaker 1: I'll say one more thing about the general style of

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Speaker 1: hunting that you see in gun season, as it relates

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Speaker 1: to the one spot style. Having one stand means you're

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Speaker 1: going to hunt whether the conditions are perfect or terrible,

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Speaker 1: whether the wind is coming from the north or the south,

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Speaker 1: or the rain is falling, or the field nearby is

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Speaker 1: unpicked or whatever. The range of a gun and a

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Speaker 1: luck factor are usually enough to get folks to go

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Speaker 1: back to the same spot and sit where they've sat

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Speaker 1: for a year after year and hopes that this time

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Speaker 1: will happen. But it's not always the best option. It's

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Speaker 1: an okay strategy for killing deer somewhat consistently in a

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Speaker 1: lot of places, but if you want to mature buck

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Speaker 1: or are hunting in a place with real pressure, which

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Speaker 1: is super common during gun season, that strategy might not

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Speaker 1: pan out that well. This is also an excellent way

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Speaker 1: to witness how quickly de react to pressure and suddenly

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Speaker 1: stopped going where they've been going for much of the fall.

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Speaker 1: And here's the thing about this stuff that I said

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Speaker 1: on this show over and over. You really have two

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Speaker 1: jobs as a deer hunter. The first is to out

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Speaker 1: hunt the deer. The second is to outwork your competition.

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Speaker 1: If everyone in your party posts up in a ladder

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Speaker 1: stand to look over a wide open ground each day

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Speaker 1: of this season, is your best bet to just follow

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Speaker 1: suit and do what they're doing. Spoiler alert, it's not now.

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Speaker 1: If you've got a sweet spot with limited pressure, you

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Speaker 1: might be able to volume hunt one spot until it

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Speaker 1: happens for you. The rest of us we should consider

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Speaker 1: something different. When I gun hunt, which I mostly do

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Speaker 1: these days in northern Wisconsin, where nearly six thousand other

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Speaker 1: folks try to shoot a deer at the same time,

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Speaker 1: I always plan for two types of sits. The first

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Speaker 1: is that typical gun stand with a nice shooting rail,

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Speaker 1: a comfortable seat and platform and room to see. This

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Speaker 1: is an opening day stand and it might allow me

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Speaker 1: to catch a deer who hasn't fully realized that the

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Speaker 1: World War three level shooting he hears is a super

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Speaker 1: danger to him. This is a stand that might come

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Speaker 1: into play for only opening day, or maybe all of

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Speaker 1: opening weekend, but after that that kind of stand is

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Speaker 1: usually a lost cause, and in that case, it's time

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Speaker 1: to go to a portable stand in the cover. Now

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Speaker 1: this sounds simple, but it's a mental thing. It's very

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Speaker 1: hard to take a scoped, high powered rifle into a

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Speaker 1: stand that allows for shots that might top out at

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Speaker 1: only forty or fifty yards, but that's often where the

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Speaker 1: deer will be. I blew the mind of a good

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Speaker 1: buddy of mine who is a die hard gun hunter

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Speaker 1: a few years back with a strategy. He sits shooting

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Speaker 1: lanes and field edges and generally does what gun hunters do.

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Speaker 1: I felt like the deer I was hunting, We're going

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Speaker 1: to catch on quick. So I made the move to

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Speaker 1: a staging area in the thick cover by the first

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Speaker 1: afternoon of the season. So we were on different properties,

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Speaker 1: but we were hunting different strategies. And after blanking the

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Speaker 1: entire first day until the late afternoon, I heard footsteps

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Speaker 1: in the leaves, and then I saw antlers, and when

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Speaker 1: the eight pointer showed himself at thirty five yards, it

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Speaker 1: was over. Even I can't screw that shot up of

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Speaker 1: a rifle. I could have killed that buck with a bow.

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Speaker 1: In that situation, he was in a spot traveling in

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Speaker 1: a specific direction that would have kept him in the

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Speaker 1: tight cover until dark. I had a pretty good idea

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Speaker 1: where he was coming from, I had a pretty good

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Speaker 1: idea where he was going, and I had a pretty

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Speaker 1: good idea that he wasn't gonna walk out in the

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Speaker 1: wide open. I firmly believe that it only took a

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Speaker 1: handful of hours to remind that deer, a deer that

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Speaker 1: had been through a couple of gun seasons already, that

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Speaker 1: it was time to stay in the thick stuff. This,

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Speaker 1: along with just holding up and not moving much, it's

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Speaker 1: their go to survival strategy. They do it often, and

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Speaker 1: they do it really, really well. They know that the

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Speaker 1: woods have gone from relatively empty too full of people

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Speaker 1: driving a t v s around and trying to do

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Speaker 1: little mini drives to one another and just generally alerting

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Speaker 1: the white tail herd to their presence in the woods. Now,

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Speaker 1: this doesn't stop the rut, and it doesn't stop dear

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Speaker 1: from eating. It just changes when and where they do

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Speaker 1: these things. Basically, they do these things where we don't

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Speaker 1: like to go. It's not really mind blowing, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's old news to anyone who has read hunting articles

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Speaker 1: for a while. But the places we don't like to

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Speaker 1: go are often not what you and I think of. Sure,

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Speaker 1: you know, this could mean an overgrown homestead or a

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Speaker 1: thicket filled with multiflora rose. It might also mean a

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Speaker 1: real swamp. It might mean a single side of a

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Speaker 1: bluff that is steep and pinned between two major roads.

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Speaker 1: Don't It might mean a cat tail slow that the

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Speaker 1: deer been using all season. Now, this all depends on

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Speaker 1: where you hunt and how much land you have to roam.

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Speaker 1: But if your property features some thick stuff, especially in

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Speaker 1: a place that you tend to ignore for some reason,

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Speaker 1: some deer probably dive into it when the gunshots start

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Speaker 1: sounding off. It really is often that simple. But what's

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Speaker 1: not simple is hunting that type of spot. It might

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Speaker 1: be a couple of acres where you think, well, if

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Speaker 1: I can see the edge, i'll shoot them when they

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Speaker 1: come out. But you might actually need to be right

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Speaker 1: in there with them. That's a hard thing for a

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Speaker 1: lot of gun hunters to believe. It's much easier to

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Speaker 1: go to the default stand and hope a buck comes by.

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Speaker 1: Now a good way to think about finding these deer

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Speaker 1: honey Hooles is to think about elk hunting in an

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Speaker 1: over the counter unit, since there are plenty of backcountry

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Speaker 1: warriors dead set on hiking as deep as possible. There's

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Speaker 1: no rule anymore that says, if you just get far

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Speaker 1: enough from the trailhead you'll find unpressured bulls. That strategy,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't work very well anymore. People are everywhere. You know,

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Speaker 1: you've outfitters going in on horses, You've got just regular

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Speaker 1: hunters going in on horses. You've got die hards who

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Speaker 1: think they have to be seven miles from the trailhead.

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Speaker 1: People are everywhere. They find every spot, So you've got

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Speaker 1: to go find small pockets of dark timber or aspens

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Speaker 1: where those folks just don't go for whatever reason. These

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Speaker 1: are often a hell of a lot closer to main

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Speaker 1: trails than we think, but almost always necessitate a big

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Speaker 1: climb up to or a controlled descent into a spot.

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Speaker 1: Do you do the same thing on a smaller scale.

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Speaker 1: They're just like little elk in little elk territory. They

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Speaker 1: are just tuned in to where we don't like to go,

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Speaker 1: and they'll choose those spots to ride out the gun

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Speaker 1: season and Having one extra ambush option in a place

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Speaker 1: like this can change your entire gun season, especially after

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Speaker 1: they're the excitement of opening week has died down, when

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Speaker 1: that first Monday and the deer seem to have all

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Speaker 1: been sucked up by a UFOs tractor beam and whisked

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Speaker 1: off to the Andromeda galaxy. It is really hard to

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Speaker 1: stay in the game when you know that you haven't

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Speaker 1: seen so much as a button buck from your stand

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Speaker 1: in a day or two or three. One fresh vista,

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Speaker 1: even if it's a tight vista, is all it takes

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Speaker 1: to keep your mental game sharper and to throw the

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Speaker 1: local deer for a loop by doing what their main predator,

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Speaker 1: you isn't supposed to do. But I'll say this again,

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Speaker 1: it's not easy. If you're going to gun hunt like

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Speaker 1: you'd bow hunt, then you actually have to gun hunt

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Speaker 1: like you'd bow hunt. Writing the a TV down the

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Speaker 1: logging road to within a hundred fifty yards and your

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Speaker 1: stand at first light, I'm not gonna cut it. Guys.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna want to get up early, and you're gonna

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Speaker 1: want to walk. You're gonna want to be quiet. You're

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Speaker 1: not gonna want to ignore the wind direction because that's

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Speaker 1: not gonna work out for you. If you're hunting a

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Speaker 1: two acre island in a swamp, you can't have the

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Speaker 1: wind blowing right through it. They'll kill your chances so

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Speaker 1: fast it's not even funny. You still have to think

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Speaker 1: through your setups and realize that you're probably not going

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Speaker 1: to get the advantage of being two yards away from

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Speaker 1: the deer. This is going to be a close game.

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Speaker 1: Because you're bow hunting with a gun, They're gonna be

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Speaker 1: right on top of you. They're gonna be kg. You

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Speaker 1: need to plan for that, but you also need to

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Speaker 1: just do it. Have one backup spot, either set up

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Speaker 1: or the means to go mobile and make a hunt

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Speaker 1: like this happen. Oftentimes, you might only have to go

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Speaker 1: a couple hundred yards from your go to a ladder

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Speaker 1: stand to find this opportunity. There are other times when

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Speaker 1: you might need a total reset on your spot choice

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Speaker 1: either way. Planned to hunt like others won't, to kill

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Speaker 1: deer that others won't. If you fail at this, which

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Speaker 1: is possible, next week, I'll tell you why and how

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Speaker 1: to not have a repeat of this unsuccessful gun season.

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Speaker 1: That's it for this week, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson

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Speaker 1: and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast.

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Speaker 1: Be sure to check out the meat Eater dot com

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Speaker 1: slash wired for more dear related articles, videos, and podcasts.

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Speaker 1: M